Richard Kopf, a U.S. District Court judge in Nebraska, writes a blog. The other day, he vented about the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hobby Lobby, the decision that extended the fiction of corporate personhood to the point of now offering the law's protection to "corporate" beliefs. The owners of Hobby Lobby can have their corporation opt out of providing contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act.
Writes Kopf about the court's tendency to decide, on a 5-4 basis, significant issues dividing the country: "Next term is the time for the Supreme Court to go quiescent – this...
July 8, 2014
Over the many years I've written this column – I think it is now 14, but who is counting? – I've taken pride in never missing a week. (Except for the couple of months years back when I impetuously quit, and then returned.) Only once has a column been spiked, or not used by the editor, and that was a wise call as I had more than the usual intemperance when it came to describing a certain clerk of the Superior Court.
But weekly opinion writing takes its toll. Some weeks the well is dry, especially when, as now, I am in the midst of a long summer vacation, idling time away at...
July 3, 2014
Despite the fact that I spend as much time as I can in courtrooms, I still enjoy reading fiction about the law and lawyering. I worry always about what I am missing as I stand in the middle of someone else’s storm. Legal fiction provides perspective, and, frankly, entertainment.
Why is it that not one writer of legal fiction deals realistically with the business of making a living at the practice of law? Is the topic too difficult to render? Or is it that we don’t want to be honest about legal fees?
Few clients can afford the lawyer they want, and few private lawyers...
July 2, 2014
A lawyer representing himself, the saying goes, has a fool for a client. So what of a physician who decides to represent himself in a high-stakes criminal case? Is he, too, a fool?
Dr. Lishan Wang is charged with murder. He is alleged to have shot to death another physician, Dr. Vajinder Pal Toor, in Branford in 2010. The motive? Dr. Wang's suspicion that Dr. Toor had something to do with Dr. Wang's being fired at the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn back in 2008, a move Dr. Wang appears to believe ruined his medical career.
If Dr. Wang were a better shot, he'd be...
June 27, 2014
June 21, 2014
I've noticed a certain uneasiness in the chambers of several judges. They don't like talking about plea bargaining in any public way. Indeed, in one...
June 20, 2014
One of the best scenes in “The Wizard of Oz” is when Toto, Dorothy’s dog, pulls back the curtain on the Great Oz, exposing a...
June 12, 2014
Jerad and Amanda Miller thought the revolution had begun, so they shot a couple of police officers at a pizzeria and then walked over to a local...
June 8, 2014
I've never understood why some criminal defense lawyers feel the need to make a great public display about how they only represent those whom they...
June 4, 2014
I have no idea whether Phil Mickelson, one of the world's premier golfers and three-time winner of the Masters golf tournament, is guilty of insider...
May 29, 2014
Oh, Dannell, what a disappointment you are. The governor's been pumping the judiciary full of geriatric pals, positioning them for $100,000 a year...